From the archives: FINA pulls plug on Montreal aquatics

In a stinging rejection of a last-gasp effort from Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay, the Federation Internationale de Natation insisted late yesterday it is sticking to its guns and has pulled the plug on Montreal as site of July's World Aquatics Championships, expecting to place the event elsewhere.

The federation won't budge from its morning decision to dump Montreal for the July 17-31 event and identify a replacement site by Feb. 15, said Roger Legare, co-president of the Montreal 2005 organizing committee.

Prospective bidders include Singapore, Bangkok and Athens.

"I spoke to both" Mustapha Larfaoui and Cornel Marculescu, respectively president and executive director of the federation, just before midnight local time in Frankfurt, Germany, Legare said, more than seven hours after the conclusion of an extraordinary, unprecedented meeting of FINA's board of directors.

"We hit a cement wall" during the past week, Legare told The Gazette, and "the position of FINA is quite definite.

"It was a question of cash flow and a question of confidence. We've failed them on both cases."

Is the decision final?

"It is now," he responded.

Montreal 2005 issued a statement last night that "an orderly closing of the operations takes place in the next few days."

While FINA "actually didn't close the door definitively to Montreal in that (new bidding) process," Legare said, "certainly there's a lack of confidence now. We have to come back to them to convince them we are serious this time around. ... I'm hoping the door is still open." But he said he has received no such assurance.

Because Tremblay offered in late afternoon, at a hastily called news conference, to dump the event's entire deficit on Montreal taxpayers, Legare said "money is no more an issue."

According to the mayor, the event is short $10 million. Other indicators peg the red ink at $17.2 million or more.

"I'll sign a piece of paper," Tremblay said. "I'll give them a commitment - the city of Montreal will - to the effect that if there's ever a deficit, we'll be responsible for the deficit.

Any such confidence appears to have evaporated. Allowing the games to stay after organizers fell so dramatically short would undermine "the credibility of the World Championships, the biggest world aquatic event, and the worldwide value of the FINA brand," FINA said.

"You cannot ask at five minutes before midnight saying, 'Well, now is the time for the (government), for the third time, to add money in,' " said Jean-Marc Fournier, Quebec minister of municipal affairs and sports. The province has poured in $14 million.

It's too late, said Ian Howard, a Canadian with 37 years of experience in the international sports scene, because Canada's prospects for attracting prestigious global events of any kind have already been devastated.

"The damage is international," from the "unprecedented" FINA decision, he said, and the effects will reverberate for years. "I do not recall this happening before, period" for financial reasons for such a high-end meet, Howard said. "Any city in Canada" now making a bid to host any international event "will be held to a higher standard."

The economic fallout for the Montreal region includes 55,000 cancelled hotel room-nights, an estimated 20,000 forgone tourist visits and the evaporation of about $80 million of economic spinoffs. An anticipated one billion TV viewers across the planet can't expect to see the Montreal skyline serve as backdrop to the July events, involving 2,000 athletes, staff and officials.

Diver Alexandre Despatie, defending world 10-metre champion and honourary spokesperson of the Montreal meet, learned of the loss of the event while training. "Maybe I shouldn't say this, but no one on the organizing committee has been talking to me," said the Laval native. "It's a huge disappointment for me and all the athletes."

Officially, prospective contract-cancellation penalties have been pegged at $14.7 million. When the dust settles, the dollar costs will be tens of millions more. Lawsuits, Howard suggested, are almost certain to fly.

More than $13 million of a $19-million total that had been pledged by Ottawa "has been spent" already by the Montreal 2005 organizing committee, said Stephen Owen, federal minister of state for sport.

The single most damaging result, Howard stressed, is how severely Canada's international reputation has been muddied.

"I don't have that sense," Owen said - "although I won't quarrel" with Howard's assessment.

The roughly 70 sporting federations that govern amateur sports disciplines across the globe are closely knit and Canada's reputation has been stigmatized "for the foreseeable future" by the Montreal fiasco, Howard said.

Montreal has spent about $11 million already, with the finishing touches completed to three permanent new pools on Ile Ste. Helene. Two temporary pools haven't been built - although contracts are locked in.

"FINA didn't blink," Howard added - and sent an iron-clad message to future prospective bidders everywhere that their word must be their bond.

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